International Week/Trip to Lappland

The last few weeks have been very eventful ones, and I will try my best to recap.

So two weeks ago, the university had its "International Week", which involved tons of great lectures, concerts, films, and food from all over the world served in the various cafes and restaurants around campus. Some of the coolest things that I did were watched a West African group perform, went to a screening of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" which was absolutely packed with international students, went to a lecture about a Swedish doctor's experiences in Sudan, and went to one of the local clubs on campus to see a DJ from Stockholm play all sorts of amazing international music and danced it up with all the friends I've met here. It was a really great week and being as it was the first year that the university has organized a set of events like this, I think that they did a pretty good job.

Last week, I went on a trip to Swedish Lappland to work with the Sami and assist them in their reindeer herding. The Sami are the indigenous people of Scandinavia. The whole trip was organized for a course I am taking as of the moment, Sami History. The department of Philosophical, Religious, and Historical Studies here at the University paid for me and the other students (5 French, 2 Germans, and one Austrian) to travel 4 hours up north to a small Swedish town called Sorsele to stay in a youth hostel for three nights and experience the area. We originally were only supposed to spend a night there, but the Sami who we were going to be working with kept calling our professor and saying that she was forced to delay the actual reindeer separation process, which is when all of the reindeer which are being moved down to the winter grazing areas closer to the coastal area of Sweden, near the Gulf of Bothnia, and have to be split up according to their respective owners. The behavior of the reindeer themselves determine when the separation will take place, as well as the weather so we had to wait a few extra days. But it was totally worth it. When we arrived in Sorsele we had no idea where the hostel was, so I had to call the owner of the hostel and ask for directions. So we were all walking in the snow and cold with our bags and ended up stopping a few Swedes leaving a cafe for directions again. It was then that the owner of the hostel pulled into the parking lot with his car and gave us a ride. He apparently had just left his house to look for us and take us to the hostel himself. And some of the other Swedes gave the rest of the students who couldn't fit into his car rides to the hostel. It was pretty ridiculous how kind they were. I can only help but think that Americans would never do that. At least most wouldn't.

So we arrived at the hostel, and it was way different than we expected. It was an actual house, with a kitchen, bathrooms with showers, a laundry room, multiple bedrooms with lofted (and nice) beds, and a cozy living room/dining room area. We couldn't have been more comfortable. One of the French students brought his guitar, another brought an Irish pan flute, and another brought a bongo drum and we all played music together and it was absolutely amazing. We cooked food together, explored the town, took walks through the woods, had snow fights and overall took it easy. And the best part is that we didn't pay for any of it!! Well, the food of course but that's it.

After staying for two days, we drove 10 km further north to help with the actual reindeer separation. We drove into a forested area expecting to see maybe a few cars. Instead we found dozens of cars, trucks with signs labelled "reindeer transport", in Swedish of course so "rentransport", and an extremely elaborate enclosure system for separating the reindeer. We helped lay hay for the reindeer to eat and then help with the actual separation. There is a central enclosure area where they filter the reindeer in to be separated by the individual Sami owners. They different owners each have their own marks to signify ownership, which they cut into the ears of the reindeer. Each Sami can recognize their own ear marks, even when the reindeer are running around like crazy. It is absolutely crazy, like finding a needle in a haystack. When they have spotted a reindeer that belongs to them, they grab the reindeer by the horns and pull it over to a door to let it into that Sami's respective enclosure area. This doesn't really harm the reindeer, it's probably more of an annoyance to them. They then gave them innoculations against worms and parasites and released them into the separate enclosures. They are really stubborn animals and pretty tough. It took usually three people to separate each individual reindeer.

Oh yeah, and there were about 4,000 reindeer. I have never seen so many animals together in one area.

After we helped with the separation, it was time for the drive home. We were all a bit tired and cold, but felt privileged to have been able to take part in such a cool experience.

One thing that is interesting about the Sami is that they have been legally administered, pushed around, socially and politically discriminated against, and yet even with all of that, the Swedish majority barely knows anything about them. And I'm not talking about the government, but the average person. It's pretty damn embarassing and pathetic. The only comments one of my roommates gave to me were about how a lot of people hate the Sami because the reindeer are all over the roads and cause car accidents. But then of course it was the Swedish government which passed legislation stating that the only economic pursuit that can be pursued by Sami is reindeer herding, otherwise their 'immemorial' rights to land not to mention their identity would not be recognized. It's complete ignorance and really makes me upset. As much as Swedes champion the progressiveness of their society and the Swedish 'welfare-state', they can be just as apathetic and discriminatory as Americans at times.

But all politics aside, it was a very rewarding trip and I am very glad to have done it.

This week will be pretty busy for me. I have just finished writing a final paper for my course on Education and Post-Colonial Societies and have to do two assignments for my Sami History course.

Despite that, I have begun planning my winter break plans. I will be flying to Madrid, Spain on December 13th to visit a friend from the UW for about 4 days. Then I'll be flying to Marseille, France on the 17th to visit the city and enjoy the hopefully (relatively) warm weather of the Mediterrenean. Then I'll be taking a train to Freiburg, Germany to visit another friend from the UW. I'll be staying with her for the Christmas holiday and we'll probably do some day trips around Germany, to see the medieval castles and visit some of the famous Christmas markets. If I have time and money! I may go to Amsterdam to see two other friends from the UW who are doing some European traveling in early January.

We are entering the worst period of the year here in terms of lack of sunlight. The sun sets now at about 2:30 PM and it's only going to get earlier and earlier until the solstice on December 21st. Up in Lappland, the sun was setting at 12:30 PM!! Crazy I know! I've been going to the gym regularly to offset the depression and lack of motivation that can onset during this time, and it's been helping quite well. It's also really cold here, I can't wait to get to Spain and southern France and get some sun and warmth!! At least comparatively speaking.